by Evelyn James
The landing was cramped, made worse by the rubbish in the corner. The walls were riddled with damp and the paper was peeling off them in greasy, yellow strips. The only way to go was through a door to the right of the landing. Clara stepped over a ruck in the old carpet, alarmed that her shoes appeared to be sticking to the floor, and knocked at the door. There was no answer.
“He might not be home,” Tommy observed.
“That would be inconvenient,” Clara grumbled, knocking again. “Mr Little? Can we speak with you?”
“Did you hear a sound just then?” Rose asked, glancing suspiciously at the pile of newspapers. “I am pretty sure it was not a rat.”
“You think he is hiding?” Tommy said.
“I am not with the police,” Clara said through the door. “I just want to talk to you about Jenny. Something awful has happened to her.”
There was still no replied from the flat. However, the gentleman from the floor below had come out of his room to see what was going on. He peered up the stairs at them.
“What do you want?” He asked in a heavy accent that suggested he was Russian.
“We are looking for Callum Little,” Clara called down to him. “Do you know if he is at home?”
“Why you look for Callum?” The Russian asked with a surly expression. “Who are you?”
Clara had no time for all this, she was fed up with having to explain herself to everybody that day.
“I am here about Jenny, his girlfriend,” Clara explained as briefly as she could. “She has been found dead.”
The Russian did not seem impressed by this.
“You look like trouble,” he said. “I want no trouble. I am good, honest man. I don’t kill any women.”
“I never suggested you did,” Clara remarked in exasperation.
“You think I killed Mr Little’s woman? Huh? I know what this is, you are setting me up!” The Russian was puffing himself up into a panic. “I have seen this in my country. You blame innocent man for crime! No! I am no criminal!”
The Russian turned around and darted back into his own flat with the sharp slam of his door. They could hear a chain being drawn and then what sounded like a chair being dragged across the floor and placed behind the door.
“Well, that was helpful,” Clara said sarcastically. “Look, I don’t think Mr Little is at home.”
“I’m not leaving without answers,” Rose said quickly, she stepped past Clara and peered at the door. “There is no lock.”
“No one bothered to install one when these rooms were changed from being bedrooms, or whatever, to flats,” Tommy suggested. “That Russian fellow appears to have installed a chain on the inside of his, though.”
“That only works when you are in the flat,” Clara said. “What do you say we let ourselves in and see if there is anything about Callum Little’s rooms that will give us a clue as to what happened to Jenny?”
Rose needed no further encouragement. She took the handle of the door, turned it sharply and rushed into the room. The opening of the flat let a further, sharp cloud of villainous aroma slip out.
“Oh, my word, its like bad eggs,” Clara coughed.
Tommy was looking worried.
“I know that smell. I’ve come across it before,” he took a pace to the door and stepped through.
Clara was not far behind. She was trying not to gag as she stepped into the flat and found the cause of the strange odour.
“I knew that scent from the trenches,” Tommy said grimly.
Rose was stood beside him, her face bleak.
Lying on an old iron bedstead, on filthy sheets, was Callum Little. Someone had stabbed him repeatedly in the chest and left him where he fell. He must have been there a few days, considering the stench in the room and the buzzing flies swarming around his body. Clara was made of stern stuff and had seen a few grim things in her time, but the discovery of the corpse turned her stomach and she had to step out of the room to try and catch her breath.
“We need to summon the police,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The arrival of Brighton’s finest had the landlady in a state of horror. She hobbled back and forth from the front door to the foot of the stairs, pulling at her hair and crying out that the world was cruel, and these things should not happen to old, honest ladies. Clara felt like telling her that very little had happened to her, compared to what had happened to the unfortunate Callum Little.
As for the Russian in flat 3b. The sound of the police traipsing up the stairs had him in a fit of anguish and he was spotted by a constable slipping out of a window and scurrying down the road. He was apprehended, but Inspector Park-Coombs was not convinced his hasty departure was evidence of anything more than the fellow’s paranoia and dread of the authorities. He had a constable watch over the man and the old landlady in a front room, while he inspected the crime scene.
“What have you stumbled upon now Clara?” Park-Coombs asked as he arrived on the top landing.
Clara was waiting outside the flat, she had no intention of going back inside.
“The gentleman in this room had been pointed out to me as the boyfriend of the woman who was murdered in the alley the other night. Her name was Jenny, and the poor soul in this flat went by the name of Callum Little.”
The inspector walked through the door and could be heard gagging as he drew nearer the corpse. It was not so much the sight of the victim as the smell, which had not quite reached the stage of pervading throughout the house, but was certainly noticeable when you went into the flat. Clara waited for the inspector to return.
“Someone didn’t like our friend here,” he said, dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief. He had gone pale. “Maybe Jenny killed him?”
“And then she in turn was killed?” Clara said. “No, I think it more likely the same murderer attacked them both. Callum Little was in a line of work where he was going to upset people.”
“He is known to me,” the inspector nodded. “Small-time fence, and not against running errands for people he shouldn’t. He didn’t deserve to be stabbed to death, though.”
“Someone clearly disagreed,” Clara remarked.
Dr Deáth appeared on the stairs, smiling as usual.
“Hello,” he greeted them. “Why, it smells like five days of decay up here. I guess there is a body.”
“Your patient is awaiting you in that flat,” the inspector moved out of the way to let the police surgeon through. “He doesn’t seem in a hurry to go anywhere.”
“The dead never are,” Dr Deáth grinned. “It is much easier than dealing with the living.”
Dr Deáth disappeared into the flat and they could hear him humming to himself as he began to work.
“Always happy,” Inspector Park-Coombs said with a mild look of amazement. “Well, what do we make of all this then?”
“Revenge? A grudge?” Clara suggested. “Callum Little was mixed up with all the wrong sort of people, he is bound to have stepped on some toes.”
“And he was connected to the woman in the alley?”
“Jenny, yes. They had been walking out for months, and she was working with him. Odds are, whatever sparked his murder, sparked hers too.”
Inspector Park-Coombs glanced down to the next landing where Tommy and Rose were standing. Rose looked uncomfortable around all the police and was close to leaving. Tommy had persuaded her to stay, but Clara suspected it would not be long before she made her exit.
“You trust her?” He asked Clara.
“She was close to Jenny, but has been out of this area for some time. Yes, I trust her. She wants the killer of her friend caught.”
“Best we go talk to the landlady and this Russian, then,” the inspector shrugged.
They headed downstairs to the guarded front room. The police constable stepped aside to let them in. Unlike the upper floors, someone had made the effort to keep this room clean and tidy. Every surface that could be was covered in a lace doily, from the small
table stood in the window, to the arms and back of the sofa and even the mantelpiece. It appeared that the old landlady barely left this room, the sofa doubling as a bed when she needed it and she had made a hasty effort to hide an old-fashioned chamber pot behind a cupboard. She sat on the sofa at a peculiar angle, her crooked back not allowing her to sit against the cushions. She still struggled to look up to the faces of Clara and the Inspector because of her deformity, so Clara sat down on the carpet to be able to speak to the woman properly.
Beside the landlady sat the Russian; a big, burly man with an impressive moustache and a very anxious look on his face. He had one eye on the constable at the door and was trying to work out how to make another escape.
“Might I take both your names,” Inspector Park-Coombs began.
“Mrs Lamb,” the old woman said. “What has happened upstairs?”
“Your tenant, Callum Little, has been murdered in his bed,” Inspector Park-Coombs told her.
“I didn’t do it!” The Russian declared suddenly. “I had no complaint with him, except for the rats. He was a filthy man, always leaving his rubbish about, but I did not kill him over rats!”
“Your name?” Park-Coombs said in his matter-of-fact tone.
The Russian looked bleak.
“Igor Valentovsky,” he said.
Park-Coombs tapped his pencil on the side of his notepad.
“You are going to have to spell that out Mr Vorsky.”
“Va-len-tov-sky,” the Russian repeated, some pride returning to his demeanour. “Sergeant Valentovsky. I was in the army before the Revolution.”
“Nasty business that,” Park-Coombs nodded. “You’ve been here ever since?”
“No. I was a prisoner of the Germans until the peace came. I was lucky. I lived. I was helped by English prisoners, they got me to England.”
“Mr Valentovsky has been my tenant for three years and he is very reliable,” Mrs Lamb told the inspector in a determined tone. “He keeps an eye out for me. I’ll hear no word said against him.”
“What about Mr Little?” Park-Coombs asked.
“I don’t see him much,” Mrs Lamb puttered. “He isn’t what I would describe as respectable, but an old woman can’t say no to a lodger. I need the money. I’ll say this for him, he might have been a criminal, but he always paid his rent on time.”
“When is the last time you saw him?” Park-Coombs continued.
Mrs Lamb sighed and gave this some thought.
“Is it Friday today? Must be because I heard the dustbin men earlier with their cart,” she mumbled.
“It is Mrs Lamb, tonight is my talk at the Russian Refugees Association,” Valentovsky politely interjected.
Clara saw how the big Russian tenderly spoke to the old, crippled woman, and she knew that what Mrs Lamb had said was true. Valentovsky cared about his landlady and took an interest in her wellbeing.
“Ah yes, that it is,” Mrs Lamb nodded. “Then it must have been…”
She counted on her fingers.
“Saturday evening,” she said at last. “Mr Little came home with his lady friend. They went upstairs a while, then I heard him come down and show her out the front door. I always have this room door open, so I can see who is coming and going. I was having one of my bad days and was lying on the sofa. I called out to Mr Little, asking if that was him. He came to the doorway and said he was just seeing Jenny out and he was going to bed.”
“How did he seem?” Park-Coombs asked. “Was he relaxed? Anxious?”
Mrs Lamb hesitated, trying to prise open another corner of her memory, eventually she spoke.
“He looked wary. He asked me if he should lock the front door right then, that made me wonder as he had never asked that before. I told him that I was expecting Mr Valentovsky later and not to lock it. Mr Little seemed worried about that, started talking about how maybe everyone should have a key to let themselves in, then the door could be locked. I didn’t really pay much heed. I’ve never bothered with giving tenants keys. Half the time I forget to lock the front door at night, anyway.”
“I have said to Mrs Lamb that this is not safe,” Valentovsky spoke up. “You never know who is lurking about at night.”
Mrs Lamb shook her head.
“My mother never locked her front door, and no one ever set foot inside her house who was not invited. I shan’t worry about such things.”
“Yet, it appears Mr Little was worried about it,” Clara observed from where she was sat on the carpet. She had been watching the old woman’s face, considering her honesty. So far, she did not doubt a word she had said.
“Mr Little mixed with dubious people,” Mrs Lamb snorted. “Like those fellows who turned up on Sunday, just around lunchtime. They walked right in the house without knocking.”
Mrs Lamb did not seem to notice that she had just demonstrated how easy it was for an intruder to walk into her house, and that she did not have her mother’s record for no one uninvited stepping inside her home.
“I was on the sofa, trying to drink a cup of tea. I have trouble lifting my arms these days. I heard them enter and shouted out who was there. They never said anything, just looked at me briefly, then turned and headed up the stairs. A short time later they came back down and left. Had Mr Valentovsky been home, I would have asked him to find out who they were.”
“You were absent that day?” Park-Coombs turned to Valentovsky.
“Yes,” the Russian said uneasily. “I was at the Russian Refugees Association. I am secretary. We are hosting a fundraising event soon and are holding extra meetings to arrange everything.”
Park-Coombs noted this. It would be easy enough to check, if it was Sunday when Mr Little had died. Clara suspected the strange men who had entered the house were the ones the fence had been worried about.
“Was it usual for people seeking Mr Little to walk into your house uninvited?” Park-Coombs asked Mrs Lamb.
“No. I don’t like business being conducted on my premises and Mr Little was quite in agreement with that. No one but himself or his lady friend ever came here. He liked his privacy.”
Park-Coombs glanced at Clara and she knew what he was implying with his gaze – the men who turned up on Sunday, stalked into the house without saying a word, and went to visit Mr Little were likely his killers.
“Do you think you would recognise these men if you saw them again?” Park-Coombs returned to questioning Mrs Lamb.
“I would think so,” Mrs Lamb replied. “One was tall, the other shorter. The tall one had a slight limp to his left leg and he had a broken nose, smashed across his face it was. He had nasty eyes. I remember thinking that to myself. His pal was weedier, and looked like a pickpocket, shifty and always had his hands in his pocket. He had a polka dot neck scarf, that made me stop and think. I didn’t like the look of either of them.”
“I shall have a constable bring along a book containing photographs of known criminals in Brighton and if you would look through it, you might recognise someone,” Park-Coombs suggested.
“I’ll certainly try,” Mrs Lamb agreed. “I don’t like to think of them killing Mr Little. He was up to no good, but he never did me wrong.”
“I think he had talked to the wrong person,” Valentovsky said slowly. The inspector’s lack of interest in him had caused him to relax and start to open up. “I saw him late on Saturday night. He was sitting on the stairs that led up to his flat, smoking. He wanted to know if I had locked the front door. I said I had, and he looked happier. I asked if something wrong, and he shook his head. Just a misunderstanding, he said. The wrong information going to the wrong person.”
“Did someone kill him because of something he said?” Mrs Lamb looked mortified.
“We’ll aim to find out,” Park-Coombs reassured her. “In the meantime, I suggest you start locking your front door Mrs Lamb, though I don’t think either you or Mr Valentovsky are in any danger.”
“When did you last see Mr Little’s lady friend?” Clara asked.
Mrs Lamb tilted her head towards her for the first time, it was an awkward move, even with Clara sitting on the floor.
“Saturday,” she said. “When Mr Little saw her out.”
Clara said nothing, but her eyes met with Park-Coombs. Days after her lover had been slain, Jenny met her own demise. It looked like here was the motive for her murder.
“Thank you,” Park-Coombs wrapped up the interview. “I’ll have that book brought over at once.”
He stepped out into the hallway with Clara.
“This reeks of a gang killing,” he said once they were away from prying ears. “Callum Little made a mistake and he paid for it with his life.”
“Or Jenny made the mistake while working with him and they both died,” Clara pointed out.
“True,” Park-Coombs tapped at his lips. “If only we knew what that mistake was, we could narrow down some suspects.”
“What about Mortimer Parkes?” Clara asked. “Any luck with him?”
“No sign of him,” Park-Coombs admitted. “Looks like he disappeared the day you spoke to his grandfather. He probably guessed that in the course of your conversation, his grandfather would want to show off the knife, and knew he would be blamed for its disappearance.”
“He is a key suspect in all this. If he was not wielding the knife, he certainly brought it along that night. Unfortunately, he does not have a broken nose, nor is he small and shifty, so he cannot have been one of the men who killed Callum Little.”
“I’ll track him down,” Park-Coombs promised her. “In the meantime, I think I need to dig into the mystery of this unused alley deeper.”
“Could I borrow the book of criminal photographs later?” Clara asked.
Park-Coombs looked surprised.
“What for?”
“I have an idea, it might not work, but just maybe a photograph of the right criminal will jog Private Peterson’s memory. He is currently our only real clue.”